SANTA CRUZ – State laws have changed since 1976, when then 20-year-old Thomas Bigbee of Boulder Creek was fined $125 on suspicion of reckless driving. In 1983, the 26 year old was sentenced to a year of probation for disturbing the peace.

In 1991, Bigbee was sentenced to nine months in county jail and five years probation for drunken driving, the Sentinel reported.

The trend has continued and Bigbee, now 62 with no known address, has been arrested or detained in Santa Cruz County 13 times this year, including four times in March. Bigbee is one of “many, many frequent flyers” in Santa Cruz County; some have rap sheets too long — with 25 arrests or more — to be transmitted to the Santa Cruz Public Defender’s Office, attorney Ted Fairbanks said.

Bigbee’s repeated interactions with law enforcement account for 100 booking photos — some showing fresh bandages and scars on his usually bearded face — on mugshotssantacruz.com since 2014 and 68 Santa Cruz County Superior Court cases since 2007. His rap sheet has 66 traffic or criminal cases, according to the Santa Cruz County Superior Court online portal. But his arrests, documented in Sentinel archives, predate the court filings online.

DRUNK IN PUBLIC

Most recently, Bigbee was detained about 10 p.m. March 28 on suspicion of disorderly conduct and public drunkenness, according to Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office arrest logs. He was released a few hours later. Information about that case was not available from the Sheriff’s Office last week. The actual number of times Bigbee has been arrested, cited or detained is unclear.

Many law enforcement officers and social workers interviewed knew Bigbee but all of those interviewed declined to talk about him specifically.

Bigbee has no phone number listed in public records and none of the numbers listed for his relatives were functional.

A TREND

Sheriff Jim Hart has said alcohol, drugs, mental illness or homelessness are at the core of most criminal cases in Santa Cruz County, which is home to only 14 hospital beds dedicated to behavioral health patients. Criminal-justice reforms starting in 2011 in California placed an average of 70 inmates convicted of low-level felonies up to 12 years in county jail, changing the demographic of who is incarcerated in Santa Cruz and other counties.

And Proposition 47, passed in 2014, reduced some drug-possession felonies to misdemeanors and mandates misdemeanor sentencing for petty theft, receiving stolen property and forging or writing bad checks when the amount involved is $950 or less, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Proposition 57, effective last year, is giving inmates time credits and parole considerations for good behavior.

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The sweeping reforms — most designed to reduce prison and jail populations — likely affected some of Bigbee’s cases as Santa Cruz County re-entry services also have evolved.

DIFFICULT TASK

Services for substance-use disorders are a separate challenge, said Jorge Sanchez, a longtime recovered heroin addict and program manager of Santa Cruz Residential Recovery and Si Se Puede.

“It’s a cycle,” Sanchez said. “A lot of them aren’t going to get hired and, if they end up back on the streets, they’re going to start using again.”

Many substance users don’t qualify for available services, Sanchez said. And to get sober, it takes employment and housing, he said.

“Do we see a lot of them in and out of the system? Yes, we do,” Sanchez said. “Some of them have been through every program in Santa Cruz County.”

There has been an increase in the number of addicts with mental health problems, Sanchez said.

SOBRIETY SOUGHT

In 1993, when Bigbee admitted he had three previous felony convictions of driving under the influence, he was directed to complete the Sunflower House Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center, which offers substance-use treatment and a group home. That year, a judge ordered Bigbee to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous “on a daily basis,” according to court documents. He also stayed later for a few months at a sober-living center in Capitola.

Ben Lomond behavioral health professional Michael Fitzgerald said the criminal-justice system fails each time someone is released after committing crimes to finance substance-use disorders. Fitzgerald knows about Bigbee’s situation.

“We’re letting people die in these conditions and we’re considering it their right,” Fitzgerald said. “People who get arrested over and over just get buried. There is no way out. The system isn’t rooting for you.”

He said “to get sober, you have to drop everything in your life.”

“He’s going to need a total change in his environment,” Fitzgerald said, referring to Bigbee or anyone struggling with addiction. “They have to have a reason to get clean.”

Santa Cruz Police Chief Andy Mills said his staff has been identifying repeat offenders in more serious criminal cases than alcohol offenses for which Bigbee is prone.

“As a community, we have to make a decision about who we want to have in jail: the person trespassing or the person breaking into homes?” Mills said. “The courts are in a tough spot. You’re not going to solve this thing immediately.”

Santa Clara County supervisors Tuesday approved $123.1 million in funding for the construction of six new affordable rental housing projects and the rehabilitation of three existing buildings, using money from a $950 million housing bond that county voters passed in 2016.